Random Culture

What is Mainstream?

Beth Comstock, the President of NBC Universal Integrated Media, spoke at the American Magazine Conference on Monday, saying that we're in the "Golden Age" of media. She referenced the explosion of online video content, and anyone who's paying attention should come to the same conclusion... this is indeed an important time in the history of media.

But what struck me about her talk was something that Advertising Age mentioned in their coverage of her talk... the "40% Rule." According to Comstock, technologies can't be considered "mainstream" until 40% of houses adopt them. Using this litmus test, video games are considered "mainstream", but MP3 players are not, as her research has them only at a 34% reach. I hope this doesn't mean that Comstock is saying technologies that haven't reached "mainstream" levels aren't worth paying attention to... because something in the assertion that the iPod hasn't reached enough critical mass is absurd to me.

What's more, there's a larger discussion that this spawns. Namely, that businesses or technologies no longer need to reach ubiquity to be important. The Long Tail, anyone? I would argue that technologies are worth paying attention to long before they meet the standards of the "40% Rule", and that using it as a benchmark for importance can limit early opportunities to get involved and reap the benefits.

So what's the magic number? Simply stated, I don't think there is one. You have to look at more than just household reach. Who's being reached, even if it's only 5%... and how fast is it growing? Even if a technology plateaus at 5%, if those 5% are your most important target, dive in... don't wait for technologies to become "mainstream", you may just miss the boat.

Read the full Advertising Age article here.

Link via AdPulp.

Full BK Halloween Costume

Burger King started selling the King masks a while back, but just in time for Halloween, they started selling the complete King outfit. Even though the costume looks like it was made in a country with horribly poor standards of construction and design, I have to give it to Burger King... I think they may sell more than a few of these.

Link via Adland.

Download the 2007 Web Design Survey

The folks at A List Apart have released a great survey of over 33,000 web design professionals. The survey is a comprehensive profile of web designers across the world.

"Like many aspects of web design itself, our research process took the form of a dialog and included multiple stages of discovery. Preliminary findings answered some questions and raised others requiring additional study. The more we unearthed, the deeper we dug.

The attached report shares everything we learned. We offer it freely to this community that has given us so much. For the curious, we also provide an “anonymized” version of the raw data. It contains every answer to every question by every respondent, excluding only personal information—no names, just the facts. Crunch it yourself and tell us what you find."

Download the results of the survey here.

A Few Good Creative Men

Watch the video, it speaks for itself... Thanks to Todd for the link!

Portable Video Players Going Mainstream

Video has been the big topic this year, and it's worth noting that the growth we've seen in online video viewing has been accompanied by the portability of it as well. According to a recent report by Parks Associates, shipments of portable multimedia players (PMPs) will grow rapidly over the next 5 years.

Say thanks to Apple for the introduction of the video iPod, and bringing video to the iPod Nano. It's also important for content publishers to consider the growth in PMPs as they look towards distribution strategies.

Link via Podcasting News.

Arcade Fire: Interactive Music Video

I don't know what to call this other than an "interactive music video", but it's amazing. The site, built for the Arcade Fire for the song "Neon Bible", allows visitors to interact while the song is playing. But the site guides the user as well as allowing interaction, and the possibilities of what you can do change in conjunction with changes in the song. This is a must see... no word on who created the site.

Nike Supersonic

Nike has launched a MySpace community, which can be found at www.NikeSupersonic.com. The community supports a special invite-only run in London for 1,000 runners and 2,000 of their friends. It was designed by AKQA in London.

Sony Bravia Play-Doh Ad Released

As a follow-up to the original post, the Sony Bravia Play-Doh ad has been released! Watch it below.

Sony Bravia | Play-Doh
Uploaded by YforYerom

Quick Links: Oct. 4, 2007

TiltViewer
View Flickr photos in a 3-D space. Not sure why, but it sure looks cool.

New Mini UK Site: The Other Lunch Break
Mini encourages you to learn something useful during your lunch break. [via Adverblog]

Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award
Penguin and Amazon have teamed up to find the next breakthrough author online. And guess what? The community votes on who wins! [via Fimoculous]